Crowdfunding

Empowerment on an eye-to-eye level

With your support, we can facilitate the integration of refugees into our society. Psychosocial competence will make it easier for them to adapt to their new lives and help them find their way in a foreign culture. Our trained psychosocial counsellors come from 17 different nations and their goal is to help refugees overcome social isolation, victimization and feelings of helplessness and impotence. Our goal is to enable them to experience themselves as meaningful members of German society.

What is this project all about?

In recent times, Germany has seen a big influx of refugees.
These are people who are overwhelmed by their present life
situation: they have faced traumatic experiences in their home
country and therefore had to flee. They have often left their
families behind and made difficult journeys to reach Europe. In the
new environment, without the necessary language skills, facing the
stress of acculturation, staring unemployment in the face; and
dealing with the ongoing uncertainty about their lives and where
they can now live, they often feel impotent, scared and hopeless.
These challenges may manifest themselves as psychological and
social problems which cannot be solved by the refugees alone.
Furthermore, the psychological stress they undergo can have adverse
consequences not only for them but can influence their interactions
with others. Unfortunately, only a small group of refugees have
access to professional psychological help, often associated with
long waiting periods. Our social system is overloaded at this
point.

We would like to close this gap by offering them a
low-threshold, culture-sensitive, native-language specific
psychosocial counselling. Our counselling is aimed at providing
stability in the face of crises, reducing stress and offering
concrete practical solutions. Ipso's psychosocial counsellors from
17 nations facilitate self-empowerment on an eye-to-eye level.
Thus, they enable refugees to take back control of their lives and
live it meaningfully.

Through our video-online platform ipso e-care
(https://www.ipso-ecare.com), Ipso-counsellors can reach people all
over Germany and offer them evidence-based psychosocial
counselling.

What is the project goal and who is the project for?

• Provide Germany-wide availability of professional,
culture-oriented, native-speaking psychosocial counselling for
refugees either face-to-face or via the video-online platform ipso
e-care
• Make refugees feel mentally stable and help them actively
integrate into our society
• Support our social and health system through our services

Why would you support this project?

For refugees to integrate into a new environment requires a lot
of energy, patience and self-initiative on their part. However, if
they are facing psychological problems; and/or are experiencing
feelings of impotence, are scared and unmotivated, then the process
is hindered and progress is slower. Particularly in young people
with a refugee or migration background, mental stability is a very
important factor in identity development. Successful integration in
turn ensures social cohesion. With your support, Ipso will help
refugees re-discover and strengthen their sense of self and
self-efficiency. We will help them see meaning in their situation;
train them to put their skills and resources to good use thereby
restoring in them, a sense of their self-worth. From a medical
perspective, it is important to reduce their dependence on
medication or resorting to drugs and when necessary, quickly
assigning them to treatment for clinical disorders. From a social
perspective, it is essential to strengthen dialogue between them
and ourselves; reduce domestic violence and prevent ideological
radicalization. Therefore your support and our "cultural mediators"
will encourage refugees and migrants to integrate into German
society quickly and actively. Together, we would be promoting
social cohesion through empathy, solidarity and mutual sense of
responsibility.

How will we use the money if the project is successfully funded?

With your support we offer refugees and migrants our
psychosocial counselling. In concrete terms, this means that we
finance 250 consultancy hours for our clients in our counselling
centre in Berlin. We offer consultations in numerous languages (for
example Arabic, Kurmanchi, Dari, Farsi, Somali, Swahili, Tigrinya,
etc.) as well as psycho-educative support groups. We would like to
pay our certified counsellors adequately for this professional and
valuable work. A consultation hour costs 40 Euros and this includes
the fee for the consultant and for the professional supervision of
the consultant.
With your donation, you will support both the trained counsellors
by giving them an income, as well as the refugees who will benefit
from the counselling.

Who are the people behind the project?

The Managing Director and Founder of Ipso gGmbH is Inge
Missmahl. She was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz as well as the
Order of Merit of the State of Baden-Württemberg for her work and
commitment.Our international management team comprises trained
psychologists with long years of experience in concept development
and project implementation. After more than 10 years of experience
in Afghanistan and numerous interventions in countries such as Sri
Lanka, Ukraine, Haiti and China, we would like to implement a
successful model in mental health care for and with people with
flight or migration experience in Germany. Our counsellors are
trained by 6 psychologists who, as course instructors and
supervisors, support them in their work.

About Startnext

Startnext is the largest crowdfunding platform for creative and sustainable ideas, projects and startups in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Artists, creative people, inventors and social entrepreneurs present their ideas and fund them with the support of many people.